


Die Hand die zusätzliche Gutschrift verlangt or The Hand That Demands Additional Credit

by worldstealers



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s02e14 Die Hand Die Verletzt, High School, Monster of the Week, Mystery, Satanist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldstealers/pseuds/worldstealers
Summary: Alex Gilmartin is just an average, grade-grubbing, type-A know-it-all who's trying to make it through finals period. But when her bio teacher comes down with a mysterious illness and her classmates start to die, Alex is forced to ask a difficult question: is all this Satanist nonsense going to affect her exam scores???This story was originally read as an episode of the World Stealers Podcast. It's based specifically on X-Files S2 E14, Die Hand Die Verletzt and won't make a ton of sense if you haven't seen that episode. To hear any of the fics on this account read aloud by the authors with plenty of commentary are truly awful accents, find World Stealers wherever you listen to podcasts!





	Die Hand die zusätzliche Gutschrift verlangt or The Hand That Demands Additional Credit

The hallways of Crowley High School were quiet at 6:30am, and still slightly chilly from the night before. Alex Gilmartin sat on the floor, back to her locker, hunched over her US History textbook, feverishly scribbling out answers to the end of chapter questions about the excesses of the roaring twenties. She would have done it last night but rehearsal for the school play had run way over and calc homework had been a real bear and Mr. Kingory’s bio exam was only two days away and she had to prep for debate practice and not until all that was finished had she realized she had left her history book in her locker. So here she was, alone except for a handful of teachers and custodians, trying to summon up the energy to write coherently about the jazz age.  
Around 7 other students began trickling in. A few greeted Alex as they passed her but she didn’t bother to respond until she felt a kick to the side of her sneaker and a shadow loomed across the pages of The American Pageant. Alex glanced up in annoyance to see her best friend Laura grinning down at her. Laura snatched the three ring binder from Alex’s lap, plopped down on the floor next to her, and looked critically at what her friend had written.  
“Dude. Is this for Kisko’s class?”  
“Yeah. I left my stupid book in my locker and couldn’t do it last night, I’ve been here since like 6am – “  
“Alex. These are supposed to be SHORT answer questions. This should be three sentences on flappers, you wrote The Great Gatsby.”  
“Well Kisko marks you down for not being thorough!”  
“Yeah, and he also marks you down for not reading the assignment. We only had to do the first four questions.”  
Alex stopped short, staring at Laura. Then she looked down at her paper, where she had been halfway through question 11. “Fuck.”  
Laura laughed. “Whatever, it’s fine, just hand in the first page. And then stop freaking out for five seconds because I have good news.”  
“What?” Alex sighed as she let her head fall back against the locker.  
“Looks like we might get out of that dissection exam. I overheard my mom talking about Mr. Kingory and apparently he is wicked sick.” Laura’s mom was the front office secretary and, as such, Laura always knew what was going on with the teachers well before any of the other students caught wind.  
“Sweet, what does he have?”  
The bell sounded, warning students that they had five minutes to get to first period. The girls stood up, shrugging on their backpacks. “Guess. No, actually you’ll never guess, I’ll just tell you.” Laura paused dramatically, struggling to keep her face serious. “He has necrotizing fasciitis.”  
Alex stopped dead in the middle of the hall, causing a group of seventh graders to scatter, bumping into each other in a frantic attempt to avoid her. “I’m sorry what? He has flesh eating bacteria?”  
Laura burst out laughing. “RIGHT??? I mean, I know it’s not funny but like… WHAT? Mr. Kingory has never left New Hampshire; how did he pick that up? Also how did you know what it was off the top of your head, you nerd? I had to look it up.”  
Alex shrugged. “I watch a lot of ER.”  
Laura rolled her eyes. “Well anyway, it’s super bizarre, but if it gets us out of an exam who am I to ask questions?”  
They continued down the hall. Alex sighed. “This town is so freaking weird.”  
“I know, right? I can’t wait to get out of here.”

****************************************************************

By the end of second period, Alex had forgotten all about necrotizing fasciitis. Instead of collecting their US History homework Mr. Kisko had given them a pop quiz on its contents and, despite the fact that she had read the chapter half an hour earlier, Alex couldn’t for the life of her remember what had been in it. Then she had fallen asleep in calculus and hadn’t woken until Mrs. Jones had gently shaken her, much to the malicious pleasure of her classmates. At least third period was bio. Subs could usually be counted on to dim the lights and pop in a National Geographic video. She could use a full 42 minutes of uninterrupted sleep.  
The woman standing at the front of the bio lab wasn’t one of the usual roster of substitutes. She was tall and thin, with a severe bob that framed big glasses and a rather dour face. Alex slid into her usual seat next to Laura, whose face was uncharacteristically serious. “Dude. Did you hear about Jerry Stevens? He’s – ”  
But before Laura could finish the bell rang and the woman at front of the room cleared her throat. “Ok, people. People, may I have your attention please? Mr. Kingory is out sick today, so I’ll be substituting. My name’s Mrs. Paddock, I’m going to take the role.”  
A knock on the door interrupted her, and as Mrs. Paddock turned to open it Laura leaned over and hissed in Alex’s ear “Dead. Jerry Stevens is dead.”  
Before Alex could react Dave Duran, sitting a few seats over, leaped out of his chair and made a break for the window, followed closely by a man in a long trench coat. The man caught Dave by the ankle with his torso halfway outside, his non-captive foot waving awkwardly, knocking test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks to the ground with a tinkling of glass. The class broke into shouts of laughter as the man dragged Dave back inside but Laura didn’t join them, watching somberly as he led Dave out the door by the elbow while a woman, also be-trench-coated and apparently his partner, said something quietly to Cait and Andrea, who got up without a word and followed her into the hall.  
“They were there too.”  
“What?”  
“They were there too. Dave and Cait and Andrea. With Jerry. When he died.”  
“Who were those people?”  
“FBI. They think,” Laura hesitated, glancing around to see if anyone else was listening. “They think he was murdered.”  
Alex laughed. “Get out.”  
“I’m serious! I went to the office to get lunch money from my mom and everyone was talking about it! They shut up really fast when they saw me but I heard a bunch. They were all out in the woods, near the witch alter.”  
“Why were they out there? That place is creepy.”  
Laura gave Alex the kind of half pitying smile that let Alex know she had said something dumb. “I mean, the woods are where people…go. You know, they sneak out and drink or hang or… fool around or whatever.”  
Alex blushed. Laura was too nice and a little too dorky to be truly part of the popular crowd but her long blond hair and green eyes and perfect face meant she was frequently invited to the sorts of parties Alex told herself she didn’t want to go to anyway. “Well that sounds dumb. And cold. And dangerous, clearly.”  
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Paddock broke in crisply. “That was all very exciting but we have work to do. As I understand it you have an exam tomorrow. I’m handing out review packets now and I expect them to be completed and handed in by the end of the period.”  
“Wait,” Alex blurted before she could stop herself. “We still have to take the exam?”  
Mrs. Paddock looked up at Alex over the rims of her glasses. “Yes, Miss…” she glanced down at her attendance sheet. “Miss Gilmartin, is it? Yes of course you still have to take the exam. It’s a large percentage of your final grade, and I am perfectly capable of grading a pig dissection. Dissections are, in fact, rather my area of expertise.”  
Alex and Laura exchanged glances as Mrs. Paddock passed out review packets. “Of course, the one time in the history of ever Mr. Kingory is out we get the queen of pig dissections.”  
“Right? What a creep!”

*******************************************************

Word of the death of Jerry Stevens spread quickly throughout the school. Instead of the usual hallway shouting and jostling between periods students walked in twos and threes, trading rumors in low tones. Even Alex, who had always thought Jerry was a bit of a dick, was a little shaken by his death. After all, it was one thing to dislike a guy. It was another thing entirely to wish him bodily harm. Still, though some of the teachers seemed as upset as the students, they did insist on continuing to teach, and Alex had final exams to think about. To that end she found herself heading back to the biology lab after debate practice that day, hoping Mrs. Paddock would still be there. A creep she might be, but if she really was such an expert at cutting open pigs, she wouldn’t mind answering a few review questions.  
Alex paused at the closed door, peering through the window to see if Mrs. Paddock was inside. The substitute was standing over the terrarium that housed Ronald, the class boa constrictor. If she hadn’t known better Alex would have thought she was talking to the snake. Ronald had his head raised and appeared to be looking intently at Mrs. Paddock, and Mrs. Paddock stared straight back, mouth forming words that Alex couldn’t hear through the door. Both snake and woman’s heads swayed gently side-to-side, mirroring each other in perfect synchronicity. Whatever Paddock was saying the snake appeared to understand perfectly. For a moment, Alex stood watching, totally transfixed. Then she shook herself. Anthropomorphizing snakes. She was no better than the dummies who thought Jerry Stevens had been killed by witches. She knocked on the door.  
Mrs. Paddock looked up and smiled her tight little smile, beckoning Alex into the classroom. “Yes? Miss Gilmartin, correct? How are you doing? I know we had a bit of a disrupted class this morning.”  
“Oh yeah, sorry I spoke out of turn, I was just surprised that we were still having the exam with Mr. Kingory sick and all – “  
“No dear, I meant the FBI. And your classmate’s death. How are you holding up?”  
“Oh. Right.” Alex had momentarily forgotten about Jerry. She thought briefly about pretending she had come for solace from an adult but decided there was no point. She and Jerry hadn’t been friends and she needed to ace this test. “I’m all right. Actually, and I’m sorry to bother you but I just had a couple of questions about the exam tomorrow. Particularly about the heart dissection? I know it’s going to be extra credit but I wanted to make sure – “  
“Miss Gilmartin,” Mrs. Paddock cut Alex off firmly. “I graded your exam review packet. Now far be it from me to discourage keen interest in the sciences but based on your work I’d say if your worry is purely about your grade you’re fretting needlessly.” As she spoke, Mrs. Paddock reached into a desk drawer and took Alex’s review from the bottom of the stack, handing it to her and sliding the door shut. “You didn’t miss a single question, Miss Gilmartin. I would suggest glancing over the material one more time tonight and then trying to get a good night’s sleep and to stop worrying.”  
As Alex took the packet something red dripped from the paper and onto her shoe. Mrs. Paddock smiled. “You’ll have to forgive me. I had an unfortunate incident with a jam jar and a few of the papers got a bit sticky.”  
“That’s alright. Can I keep this, Mrs. Paddock? To study from?”  
“I don’t see why not. Now run along dear. It’s getting rather late.”  
As Alex walked down the hall to the front doors of the school she turned the packet of papers over. The back was certainly covered with something viscous and sticky but it didn’t look like any jam Alex had ever seen. In fact, it looked for all the world like blood.

********************************************************

Alex woke up late the next morning, her stomach in knots. Her mother, thinking she was in some sort of psychological distress about the murder, spent all morning fussing over her, offering to make her breakfast or even to let her stay home, “just this once!” Alex considered it but, ultimately, decided making up the bio exam would be far too much hassle. And besides, who knew when Mr. Kingory would be back. Did people recover from necrotizing fasciitis? And if they didn’t, did she really want to spend any after school time alone in the bio lab with Mrs. Paddock? No, Alex thought. She would rather get it over with.  
First and second period came and went, and Alex found herself side-by-side with Laura, trudging towards the lab. Laura, true to her usual self, seemed unconcerned about the exam, wanting instead to talk about the murder. “They think it was occultists!” she said, ignoring Alex’s dour mood. Alex, despite herself, was interested.  
“Who’s they?”  
“Like the whole PTC! Including Mr. Calcagni.”  
Alex scoffed. “Some school psychologist. Shouldn’t he know better?”  
“Yeah well, my mom says he’s an idiot. And a bit of a sleeze.”  
“Guess that’s why he’s working at a high school in the middle of bumfuck New Hampshire.”  
“Right. Those who can’t do work with children at their most vulnerable age.”  
Alex laughed. “Right. Which describes 98% of the people who work here. Your mom, of course, being the exception.”  
“Sometimes.”  
“More times than my mom!”  
“Your mom’s cool!”  
“Yeah in front of you!”  
The girls walked into the classroom, still playfully bickering. They stopped short at the doorway however, greeted by a tank of dead fetal pigs. “Oh gross,” Laura whispered.  
“Yeah.”  
They dropped their backpacks at their seats and Laura began prepping the lab bench as Alex got in line with their dissection tray to collect the specimen. None of her classmates looked particularly happy about the pig fetuses being dropped into their trays but Alex noticed that Shannon Ausbury, who stood in front of her, looked particularly white and clammy. The dissection tray shook in Shannon’s hands and sweat rolled down the back of her neck, turning leaving a slightly darker patch at the collar of her light blue shirt. “Hey,” Alex whispered. “Are you ok?”  
Shannon turned around and nodded briefly. “Yeah,” she said, her voice tight and strained. “Just nerves I guess. And that smell!”  
“Yeah, whatever’s preserving these little piggies is no joke. Maybe you should duck out and get some fresh air?”  
“No, I’ll be fine, thanks. My step dad would kill me if I missed an exam.”  
Shannon’s dad, Jim Ausbury, was the head of the PTC and one of those parents with a gift for involving himself in everything. He’d always been nice enough to Alex but he had a reputation for being a hard ass. Alex patted Shannon on the shoulder. “Well don’t stress too much. She’s just a sub right? If she grades too hard we’ll all raise a stink when Mr. Kingory gets back and make him change the grades.”  
“Right,” said Shannon, smiling weakly. She turned around and held out her tray and Mrs. Paddock, looking oddly excited, dropped a pig fetus into it. Alex collected her fetus in turn and returned to her seat, where Laura was waiting with a scalpel. “Pig or heart?” Alex asked, shoving the tray to the middle of the table.  
“Ugh, heart,” said Laura, wrinkling her nose. “Slicing into the baby piggy is all you my friend.”  
“Fine. Wuss.” Alex held the scalpel to the pig’s throat. “Say your prayers, piggy.”  
But before she could cut, Shannon, one row in front of her, dropped her scalpel and stood up, backing away from her dissection tray. Her pig lay on the tray, a long vertical slit down its midsection exposing its internal organs, and Shannon stared at it, white face and bug eyed. As her classmates looked on in alarm Shannon began to shriek wordlessly, her screams interrupted only by her own choking sobs. Benny, her partner watched in horror but Shannon didn’t stop. She seemed entirely unaware of her surroundings.  
After what seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Paddock rushed to Shannon’s side, flinging an arm around the girl and steering her to the door. As she left the room she looked back over her shoulder and said, as if nothing at all were unusual, “Carry on students. I’ll be back as soon as I’m able.” As soon as the door closed behind them the room erupted into loud chatter.  
“Did you see that? She looked totally possessed.”  
“Witches man! I TOLD you!”  
Laura turned to Alex with wide eyes. “Do you think – “  
“No,” replied Alex, frowning at Laura. “She was just freaking out about the dissection. Or faking it to try to get out of the exam. What a girl.”  
“You’re a girl.”  
“Not that kind. Now come on, let’s slice this pig.”

********************************************************

Alex’s footsteps echoed in the halls as she left Mrs. Jones’ classroom. Loathe as she was to admit it, she had been struggling with differential equations and Mrs. Jones had offered to help her one-on-one after school, provided, she had said, that Alex promised to stay awake. Feeling much more confident after an hour of Mrs. Jones’s endless patience and willingness to explain, Alex decided there was no harm in checking in with Mrs. Paddock to see how the dissection had gone. She and Laura had been the only two focused enough to get through the extra credit heart dissection and Alex was secretly hoping they had wrecked the curve for everyone. Not that she wanted her classmates to do badly per se, although there were a few that Alex wouldn’t mind seeing stuck in this tiny town until they rotted. It was more that Alex felt she should be rewarded for her exemplary behavior. She had dissected the shit out of that pig in the midst of chaos, and she would hate to see it go unnoticed.  
Two people stood in the doorway to the biology classroom and as she approached, Alex momentarily wondered if she wasn’t the only one worried about her grade. But these weren’t students. They were the FBI agents who had interrupted her class yesterday, and when she looked past them into the classroom she saw that it was full of green-jacketed men and women from the Sheriff’s Department. “Excuse me?” Alex asked tentatively. “What’s going on?”  
The woman turned around, looking slightly startled to see Alex there. “Nothing. Listen you’d better get home. You don’t want to be here right now.”  
“But… is Mrs. Paddock there? I needed to talk to her.”  
“Get out of here, kid,” this was the man, not quite bothering to meet Alex’s eyes. “This is an active crime scene.”  
Alex backed away, wanting to know more but not willing to disobey the feds. But before she turned to leave, one of the Sheriff’s deputies shifted his weight, leaning heavily on one of the lab benches. As he did, Alex caught a glimpse of an arm clad in a sky-blue shirt and a head with brown hair splayed about it like a halo.

****************************************************

School was canceled the next day, but Alex found precious little relief in that. She hadn’t slept at all and hadn’t even managed to drag herself out of bed by the time Laura knocked on her door. “Your mom let me up,” said Laura, coming in and arranging herself at the foot of Alex’s bed. She looked like she hadn’t slept much either. “I guess you heard what happened.”  
“Yeah. Poor Shannon. I saw her. Or at least her arm. When I tried to go to the bio classroom after school." Alex shuddered. "I feel really bad about what I said.”  
“Not just Shannon. Didn’t you hear? Her dad too. And Mr. Calcagni and the rest of the PTC.”  
“What? How?”  
“My mom won’t give me the full story but it has something to do with Mrs. Paddock.”  
“What?”  
“Yeah she’s like, a serial killer or something? And now she’s on the run and they have no idea where she is but get this. The found eyeballs in her desk drawer under a stack of papers. And a heart. They think they’re Jerry’s. Hey. Are you ok? You look like you’re going to puke.”  
“Oh my god. That sticky stuff on my study guide. She said it was jam.”  
“Oh shit dude.”  
“Yeah.”  
They sat in silence, both of them unable to speak. Finally Alex looked up.  
“Hey Laura?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I don’t want to be a dick but…” Alex paused, unsure of herself, then continued. “Do you think we’re gonna get credit for that exam?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked the story and want to hear it dramatically read aloud, check out our podcast, World Stealers, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you choose to listen!
> 
> https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/worldstealers


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